Cried she, "Why, that's more than our whole income for a year has been!"

"You are forgetting these improvements add to the value of the property.
I've bought it."

That quieted her. "You are sure you didn't pay those decorators and
furnishers too much?" said she.

"You don't like their work?" inquired he, chagrined.

"Oh, yes--yes, indeed," she assured him. "I like plain, solid-looking
things. But--two thousand dollars is a lot of money."

Norman regretted that, as his whole object had been to please her, he
had not ordered the more showy cheaper stuff but had insisted upon the
simplest, plainest-looking appointments throughout. Even her bedroom
furniture, even her dressing table set, was of the kind that suggests
cost only to the experienced, carefully and well educated in values and
in taste.

"But I'm sure it isn't fair to charge _all_ these things to the company,"
she protested. "I can't allow it. Not the things for my personal use."

"You _are_ a fierce watchdog of a treasurer," said Norman, laughing at her
but noting and respecting the fine instinct of good breeding shown in
her absence of greediness, of desire to get all she could. "But I'm
letting the firm of decorators take over what you leave behind in the
old house. I'll see what they'll allow for it. Maybe that will cover the
expense you object to."